The Brucolac
Ash on and old man's sleeve / Is all the ash the burnt roses leave. The world of Bas-Lag is one of dark, otherwordly fantasy, horror and steampunk, where magic and early industrial grit mix with blood, grime and other unsavory substances. In much of the world the Brucolac hails from, his people live secretly, disguised as the humans they prey upon. The boy Belani was born to the Ijit, travelling gypsies skilled in the arts of mooncraft. He spent his boyhood as guest and captive of the Emir of Bethmoor, companion to the prince and princess of that land. Ignorant of the fate of his people and the implications of his comfortable childhood, he grew confident and and cocky until the truth was discovered, and in his outrage he attempted to free his father, fighting back violently against recapture, and spat at the feet of the Emir. For this offense he was banished from the city and left to die in the desert. Die he did, but it did not stick, and seeing the city dressed in mourning for the twins, he left. His oaths of revenge were brittle-thin then. He travelled widely. In High Cromlech, a distant and rarely-visited land, they are called the ab-dead to differentiate them from the lich-kings who rule there. Vampirism on Bas-Lag is caused by a bacterium*, and vampir are seen as neither living nor dead, and thus are outside the power structure of High Cromlech, which places them in a caste of untouchables forced to beg for sustenance from humans. Unsurprsingly, he did not stay overlong in this place. Eventually, Belani grew in strength and skill and returned to conquer the city that had killed him and his family. In doing so, he took on the title of the Brucolac, and they heard him then. His arrival was made known. He fell upon them in the night and left them to fates of blood and fire while he stole back the moonship that his father had built. Bethmoor had nothing to offer anyone then, and so he left it again, for good. One by one the surviving wretches that he took to crew the Uroc fell to his hunger until at last, alone, he reached the floating city of Armada (a pirate-city the size of an island, made from countless boats lashed together) where carved himself a small kingdom in which he can exist openly. He set himself up in the style of the lich-kings but used the lessons he had learned at Bethmoor to become one of the best rulers the city had seen, protecting all who lived in his domain and giving them far greater freedom, protection and personal power than most Armadans enjoyed in exchange for a "goretax" of blood from human residents and service from the other vampir. It worked well enough that he was able to stand against the rulers of Armada and to even be taken back by his people after being torn from power and publicly tortured. After the events of the books, the floating metropolis of Armada returned to being a meandering hub of trade and piracy, ruled by the Brucolac and a small oligarchy of fellow leaders. Poised between the unchanging sea and the unpredictible winds and sails upon it, the Brucolac has had to remain sharp to keep himself and his people afloat. He might well have persisted for time uncounted, but for the Nexus. *Vampirism in Bas-Lag: The books don't go too far into the science of it: we know that it's spread by bacteria, that a victim can turn at any time after being bitten, usually following a period of fever and sickness, and that many die anyway. It seems to me that it would make the most sense to liken the vampirism to leprosy today. The bacterium is hard to detect, hard to kill, and impossible to culture. It is transmitted through the blood, though there is a slight chance that saliva alone might carry it. Incubation can last up to a month, during which sickness and either transformation or death occur. Neither result is certain. Dead water and dead sand / Contending for the upper hand. The Brucolac has lived for about 400 years in a world that didn't want him, and not only survived but found a way to thrive. He is patient, observant, calculating and above all practical - cruelty breeds resentment and loss. Why be cruel when people will pay in blood to feel valued and safe? At the same time he is supremely confident in himself and proud of his abilities, both martial and mental, to the point of arrogance. Though he appears no more than 25, old Belani's been knocking around for quite a while, and has picked up a fair few powers over the years. Enhanced speed and strength, a hypnotic gaze, a forked tongue and the Vemeronasal organ that goes with it, restoration/healing every evening, and narcotic spit come standard with being a vampir. The Brucolac also has limited flight (more like gliding), can encourage minds not to see him if he so wishes, and has the ability to travel through shadows and angles in a vaguely Hound of Tindalos sort of way. Most of these powers are tied directly to how much blood he has had - a pint a night maintains his current levels, and he a gallon a night to return to peak performance if he's been busy. Three days without blood costs him his strength. Four his speed. After nine he no longer heals and begins to dessicate, though he will still survive anything short of beheading or complete destruction. After a month he will stop moving entirely and be nothing more than a mummified corpse until blood touches his lips again. He can ingest non-human blood, but unless it comes from a sentient creature, it does nothing for him, and if it's not red, he's really not interested. Water and fire deride / The sacrifice that we denied. "I killed my way to this city before you were born. I won my riding in war and fire. I've butchered things that no Liveman has even seen. "I am the Brucolac, and your sword won't save you. You think you can face me?" -''The Scar'', by China Mieville He is not grateful himself. Not yet. Hungry as he is to reconcile with this ghost out of his past, he is not yet fully confident that it is a good thing to have met her. Armada has become his life, and she and her absent brother have nothing to do with it. And yet, Armada was not the whole of the world. And he had never thought twice about helping his twins, no matter how much ill-fortune it brought. Belani was dead, in Armada. Here, the dead came back to life. If I think, again, of this place / And of people, not wholly commendable *'Wanda Maximoff' "Really, I've not done enough magic recently. Keeps me in practice." *'Lyla Tzigano' "So you can't work, and you don't go to school. You don't actually get the shit taken out of you all that often - you don't have the look about you. You did not go running to your parents for help, and while you were wisely leery of a stranger, nor did you attack me for my interest. You're not trying to seduce me, or turn a profit off of me. And, you do not taste human." He smiles at her. "You're either going to rule the world, or there are people taking very good care of you." *'Martel' "Your care for your people does you great credit, Martel." *'Ankhenaten' "Godspit, you're enormous!" '' Who then devised the torment? Love. *'Uther Doul' ''"I know, Uther, that you don't know how. That in your small, serious world things keep coming to an end but life keeps going. It keeps on after all the blood and fire, and your romantic heart can't figure it. You've no skill at putting things back together, Uther, you're absolute shit at it." He sighs, exhausted. "But. I understand that part of it. Uther, fucking ask me. Ask me to forgive you, prove to me that you are going to stay, and we will bury our dead and live on. Ask me by my name, Uther, and I will give you what you seek." *'Shahzadi Nuala' "«You must be a dear friend.» A pause, «I think you are my friend, now, though we cannot replace what you lost. No more than ours could be unmade.»" *'Mirza Nuada' I still only know half the story, and I'm sure once the Mirza and I have figured out if it's to be friendship or death or nothing at all between us, things will pick up and the game will become much more complex. *'Ankhenaten' "Thank Jabber you're not a vampir, Ankhenaten. You'd die immediately. You sleep under the rock. Under''it. Keeps the sun off."'' *'Brody' "The makeup isn't going to be enough to hide how starved and exhausted you are, soon." When the tongues of flame are in-folded / Into the crowned knot of fire / And the fire and the rose are one. The Brucolac, Bas-Lag, and all that crazy goodness belongs to China Mieville. The pretty face belongs to Louis Garrel. The headings are which are excerpts from TS Eliot's Little Gidding. I do not claim to own and am not making any profit from any of the above. Category:Characters Category:Undead